Book picks similar to
Together: Community as a Means of Grace by Larry Duggins


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christianity
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practical-theology

Untamed: How the Wild Side of Jesus Frees Us to Live and Love with Abandon


Lisa Harper - 2010
    Pretending Jesus is less than He is resulted in someone I wasn't compelled to worship. So I began a journey to discover the whole Jesus--including the seemingly rough and wild parts--revealed in the Bible. And I found Him to be bigger and better than I ever dreamed.--Lisa HarperThrough a powerful blend of storytelling and biblical insights, Lisa Harper invites you to engage with the Jesus of the gospels, a person so provocative that no one left an encounter with Him unchanged. Pharisees fumed, paralytics turned cartwheels, and pariahs found love and acceptance.Come meet the Jesus who is both safe and strong--and learn how this radical Redeemer can liberate you to live and love with abandon.Includes questions for group discussion or personal reflection.

Healing the Orphan Spirit


Leif Hetland - 2013
    It is time for us to come into the fullness of who we were created to be, so all of creation will come back to Father God's house. Father God never intended for us to live as orphans without a Father or without a home. As you read this Revised Edition of Healing the Orphan Spirit, receive a revelation of how to live from your identity as a child of Father God. The orphan spirit cannot be cast out; it can only be displaced by love, because perfect love casts out all fear.

The Breath of the Soul: Reflections on Prayer


Joan D. Chittister - 2009
    It is an examination of what we ourselves must bring to the discipline of prayer--whatever form it takes--in order to make prayer authentic and real, a deep and profound part of our lives. None of the brief reflections in this book are ever finished, ever closed, ever fulled resolved. They are all ongoing steps along the way, steps we retrace over and over again as we do all the other parts of life, until they become the very breath we breathe, the vision and energy of our souls.

Selling Water by the River: A Book about the Life Jesus Promised and the Religion That Gets in the Way


Shane Hipps - 2012
    But what they deliver is fleeting.Jesus knew about this quest. He came to show us that peace is possible in this life, not just the next one. Yet Christianity, the very religion that claims Jesus as its own, has often built the biggest barriers to him and the life he promised. Celebrated speaker and pastor Shane Hipps revives the faith with a fresh and persuasive understanding of the message of Jesus. The shocking truth is that Jesus proclaimed "eternal life" as a present reality that dwells within each of us. A transformative breakthrough, this book goes beyond "religion" or "spirituality" and cuts to the heart of our humanity and existence. It's about realizing that we already possess what we are searching for, and that the Heaven we long for isn't just a gift when we die, but a gift while we live.

Ekklesia: Rediscovering God's Instrument for Global Transformation


Ed Silvoso - 2017
    We hardly ever think of it as world-changing--and neither does society. Yet this is exactly what the first-century ekklesia was.In these vital, eye-opening pages, bestselling author Ed Silvoso takes you back to the first days of the church. Digging into Scripture, he shows how the New Testament church--devoid of buildings, professional clergy, and religious freedom--was able to transform the hostile, pagan places into which it was born and set in motion a process that changed the world forever.Even more, Silvoso offers a roadmap back to becoming the ekklesia Jesus called his church to be. In the midst of the social, economic, political, and moral chaos in our world today, we possess the hope that people and nations so desperately need--and we can become the revolutionary, transformational, life-giving voice Jesus called us to be.A new, in-depth curriculum kit--which features a DVD with 12 brand-new teaching sessions, a group guide for both leaders and participants, and a copy of the book--is also available. Expounding on the book's dynamic teachings, each kit contains everything you need to equip your group to transform the world around them.

Living the Mass: How One Hour a Week Can Change Your Life


Dominic Grassi - 2005
    A. Pierce, author of Spirituality at Work The concluding prayer of the Mass is a command: Go in peace to love and serve the Lord. We are charged to go forth and quite literally transform our families, our communities, and our world through the redeeming sacrifice of Christ as celebrated in the Mass. Fr. Dominic Grassi and Joe Paprocki use this challenge as the starting point for their inspiring and illuminating look at the central act of Catholic worship. They ask, What would our faith look like if we truly understood the gift of the Eucharist?Living the Mass will stir a new passion for and a greater understanding of this sacred two-thousand-year-old celebration offered freely to all who come, to all who believe.  Also available in Spanish! Vivir la misa

Childless


Brian J. Gail - 2011
    Gail's "American Tragedy in Trilogy." The reader is propelled from Manhattan boardrooms to European capitals to Middle East laboratories to Church chanceries and confessionals. Step into these pages and follow Fr. John Sweeney and the families he serves as they struggle to live their Catholic faith in a world that grows more hostile with every turn of the page. Gail throws back the veil on the architecture of the Life Sciences Revolution and its carefully planned milestones from the abortifacients pill to in-vitro fertilization to embryonic stem cell testing, and ultimately, to the very door of the Transhumanist project itself. You will see something of your own soul in these characters as they struggle to survive the great apostasy and navigate their way to the Church's promised New Springtime.

A Peculiar People: The Church as Culture in a Post-Christian Society


Rodney Clapp - 1996
    In our individualistic, technologically oriented, consumer-based culture, Christianity has become largely irrelevant. The solution is not to sentimentally capitulate to the way things are. Nor is it to retrench in an effort to regain power and influence as the sponsor of Western civilization. What is needed is for Christians to reclaim our heritage as a peculiar people, as unapologetic followers of the Way. Within the larger pluralistic world, we need to become a sanctified, subversive culture that develops Christian community as a truly alternative way of life. Christians must learn to live the story and not just to restate it. Writing inclusively with considerable verve, Clapp offers a keen analysis of the church and its ministry as we face a new millennium.

On Marriage


Timothy J. Keller - 2020
    And so it is profoundly important to understand how to approach and experience these occasions with grace, endurance, and joy.In On Marriage, Timothy and Kathy Keller bring forty-five years of personal experience with marriage, as well as a deep understanding of God's resources in the Bible for those who want to find them. With wisdom, empathy, and compassion, the Kellers teach us to understand how to begin and nourish your marriage well.The perfect gift for anyone thinking about relationships and the institution of marriage, On Marriage is a short, powerful book that gives us the tools to understand the meaning of marriage within God's vision of life.

The Dynamic Laws of Prayer


Catherine Ponder - 1987
    DeVorss & Company; 2nd Revised edition (May 1, 1987)

You Were Made for More: The Life You Have, the Life God Wants You to Have


Jim Cymbala - 2008
    Whether you feel restless or satisfied right now, Jim Cymbala believes that God has more for you. In this new book, he'll help you find out how to access the 'more' God intends---more peace, real joy, and a deeper sense of purpose. As you open yourself up to the 'more' of God, you will also discover your unique work assignment---the one thing God is calling you--and no one else--to accomplish for the sake of his work in the world.

The In-Between Place: Where Jesus Changes Your Story


Kat Armstrong - 2021
    But what do we do when challenges stop our forward momentum? What’s the next step when we fall into a pit of despair with the determination knocked right out of us? On his way from Judea to Galilee, Jesus traveled through Samaria, a broken place everyone knew to avoid. In Samaria he stopped in Shechem, where evil had gained such a foothold of power that it eventually reigned. Yet the place once condemned as somewhere no one wanted to visit—let alone hang out in for a while—was the location of one Samaritan woman’s most hope-filled encounter with the Savior. The In-Between Place offers deeply important insights to anyone who feels stuck and can’t see a way forward. It is for the person who feels that if she looks left, her face will be scraped by an immovable boulder, and if she looks right, she’ll see nothing but hard to handle. It’s for the person who feels lost and is not sure she is worth the effort to be found, for the person who feels overlooked and unfulfilled. Because sometimes Jesus saves our greatest spiritual breakthroughs for our in-between places.

Fifty-Seven Words that Change the World: A Journey through the Lord's Prayer


Darrell W. Johnson - 2005
    In eight stirring meditations, Darrell Johnson shows how the Lord's Prayer sums up the essence of Christian faith and, when prayed in faith, draws us into draws us into the Triune God's work of transforming the world. Darrell W. Johnson is Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. A popular conference and retreat speaker, he has also served as the preaching pastor for a number of congregations in North America and the Philippines and Adjunct Professor of Preaching for the Doctor of Ministry program at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. His other books include Experiencing the Trinity and Discipleship on the Edge: An Expository Journey through the Book of Revelation.

Life Together in Christ: Experiencing Transformation in Community


Ruth Haley Barton - 2010
    Individuals remain selfish and stuck in their ways. Communities become spiritually lifeless or even fall apart because we don't know how to experience transformation together. Transforming community does not come primarily from listening to inspiring preaching or adding another church program. It emerges as we embrace a shared commitment to the attitudes, practices and behaviors that open us to Christ in our midst. And that's where Life Together in Christ comes in. Reflecting on the story of the two disciples who meet Christ on the Emmaus Road, Ruth Haley Barton offers this interactive guide for small groups of spiritual companions who are ready to encounter Christ in transforming ways--right where they are on the road of real life.

The Titus 2 Woman


Susan Godfrey - 2011
    This type of woman is truly becoming an endangered species! It’s a sad fact, but modern churches are just not teaching the “aged women” to become Titus 2 mentors and women just are not stepping up to mentor the younger women in the church. This is part of the reason I think so many of the young women in today’s church are floundering and turning away from Godly womanhood. They are just not being taught how to be Godly women. Too many churches today are pushing a twisted form of womanhood that has more in common with feminism and worldly standards than Godly standards. It is truly a sad state!Just what traits does the Bible say a Godly woman should posses? Titus 2: 3-5 lays these traits out to us in a simple and plain way. The aged women likewise, that [they be] in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, [To be] discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. — Titus 2:3-5(KJV)When you look at these verses, you can plainly see that what God requires from a Godly woman. “The Titus 2 Woman” by Susan Godfrey, dissect these eleven qualities to help us understand exactly what is expected of us as we grow and mature as Christians.